Coffee And Paint Drips Blog - Page 63 of 79

The Lost Week Begins Today

I apologize for missing Monday here, but the weather was great, the family was around and it was just too busy here to post anything. Let’s say I took a vacation from everything and did absolutely nothing! Nothing is good. However, like every good thing, ‘nothing’ must come to an end.

This coming weekend my church is holding their annual Greek Festival and Bazaar and I call this the Lost Week because I lose my whole week being there. I’m chairperson, with another friend, of the biggest weekend Flea Market around here, my opinion. And I also direct the Greek Dance Program. This is the second year I am teaching a class so maybe I won’t be such a nervous wreck like I was last year. The kids were great last year, and this time around they seem to know their stuff too!

Our Flea Market set-up began yesterday with the other chairperson and some ladies who started taking out the items for sale. When we spoke in the evening it sounded like there’s more stuff than last year. Just imagine a huge basketball court full of antiques, books, toys, baby stuff, kitchen items, electronics, linens,old and new things, and plenty of junk. A bargain hunter’s paradise. I’m going to take pictures and try to post it, wait and see.

Ok, I’m already late. Updates to come!

Photos for Friday

Thought for Thursday

“Ideas have come from the strangest places.” ~Joyce Carol Oates, writer

Life, Art and Drama

The bloom of the azaleas in the background is over now

“Artists are dramatic. Art is dramatic. If we artists are not making artistic drama we make personal drama. We tilt at imaginary windmills and demand center stage.” This is how Week 9 in Walking in This World begins. Discovering a Sense of Camaraderie says, “Keep the drama on the stage.” The author suggests that we need to focus our attention on our relationships and the difficulty that normal people present to us wacky artists. (Wacky is my word.) Normal in the sense that they have a regular job and we’re doodling and playing with paint all day. (Not me at all.) Wink-Wink.

I guess some artists can get all antsy and up in their own head that we’re not normal people because we don’t have a 9 to 5 desk job making regular money, we’re special after all, we create a drama. Artists can get more nervous and turn on relationships and it’s not reality based drama. If we don’t get to make our art regularly we make trouble. At least we’re still creative, but it’s not helpful creativity! It’s an interesting concept!

While reading I take notes like this: “Is this chapter talking to me?” I’ve been painting fairly regularly with the help of The Artist’s Way courses, but haven’t in a couple of weeks. Life happens, things get thrown out of order and art doesn’t happen. Yes, I’ve tried to stay with it in a way, but not painting. It’s strange that coincidentally there’ve been weeks of drama floating around. Nothing important, just stupid things. So I’m reading this chapter, but I don’t think it’s really about me. I’m not all that interested in causing drama or trouble. I’m a nice, quiet girl. I read this on page 201:

“As a rule of thumb, artists should repeat this mantra: Sudden problems in my life usually indicate a need to work on my art.”

I’m not a person who likes to be teased and joked about with sideways glances, however good-spirited. Being a straight, honest, level person, I like a good joke like anyone, but not if it’s a back handed compliment with a smirk on the side, however playfully done. The Mr. loves doing this and not just to me. He’s done it to his mother, brothers, etc. and he thinks he’s funny. They laugh. I get confused. I want an apology. He says it’s a joke, I don’t think he’s funny. Now he’s mad and I’m center stage! Ugh!

Finding myself alone during the weekend, The Mr. went fishing, Son #2 feeling sick and in bed, I went to my studio and started playing with my beads. No, I didn’t paint. Hours flew by as I moved the beads together making patterns, admiring the different colors, manipulated colored wire by wrapping large stones. How can I explain how much better I felt after spending that time with myself?

“Artists become snappish when they need to make art. Instead of making art, we make trouble-and we make it because we are bingeing emotionally on NOT making art…We need to go full steam ahead and when we don’t we tend to blow off steam by venting inappropriateluy about any number of imaginary ills…our aches and pains becoming the world’s pain in the neck.”

I don’t think I’m snappish and I’m no trouble maker, but I don’t want to be messed with either. I’m just reacting to a stimulus that my personality doesn’t agree with. By reading this chapter I figured that maybe I just have to keep making art so I can more easily deflect the dopey stuff that comes at me. Process, baby!

Will this be my painting spot for today?

Tasks I Forgot About While NOT Walking in This World

Peonies in the front garden this morning

As I think about the week ahead I’m trying to chose some small thing as an artist’s date. Yeah, I’m still reading Walking in This World, but for me they should have titled this book Not Walking in The World in One Easy Step: Don’t Bother At All. Sounds good?

Before I went on to the next chapter in “Not” Walking, I revisited these suggested tasks to combat the feeling of restlessness. Sometimes we don’t know what we feel like doing, where to go, how to proceed in our creativity and elsewhere. Nothing feels right and we need to be alert to experience that change. It’s like an itch we can’t scratch, but somehow ideas snap up. Mind you, if we sit in front of the easel and wait to scratch the itch it may never happen. Art does not exist in a vacuum. The answer, according to this course, seems to lie in artist’s dates where we can get a breath of fresh air and recharge.

Here’s the list of tasks I forgot about:

Visit a quiet church and sit in the back for a few minutes. Sitting tucked in a pew brings calm, humility and a sense of faith.
Visit a large plant store or greenspace which can give a sense of another world where plants can show us their secret life.
Visit a forest or a park to sense a difference rhythm of life.
Seek out a fine Oriental carpet store for a sense of the sacred in the patterns. This will remind us of the beauty in our own life.
Drop in a travel shop for a sense of adventure. An imaginary trip could be strangely calming.

I’m going to add one more to this list which is to visit a large book store or the library, two of my favorite places. The library is even better if it’s large, quiet and has stacks I can hide in so I can grab a pile of books and flip through them sitting on the floor.

Chosing one of these tasks is on my agenda this week. I’ll let you know when it happens…or not.

Sketching While Waiting

I finally found a chiropractor I can live with after trying out the “Rock Star” and some others. It’s not easy to put yourself in the hands of any doctor let alone someone who’s going to take your head and twist it around until it pops!

This chiropractor is a woman and after my intial visit I felt very comfortable with her office, her methods and sensitivities. No Rah-Rah-Chiropractic going on here, just normal procedures. She’s also involved in kinesiology, or muscle testing, and uses that before deciding how to proceed. Her office is attached to her house on a main street near where I live. It’s pleasant, cool and quiet, thankfully. The front office and receptionist is low-key like the doctor herself. She’s a mom too and we can relate. I told her my issues and she listened. Not like the other guy who ran people in without asking what their problems were, did some spinal x-ray like thing and said, “Whoa! You’ve got tons of red alert issues, and you need to come for 65 visits, and please pay for them today, in full!” Ah, no.

I had to wait a few extra minutes one morning and while I did I decided to take out my little drawing pad to sketch something. I didn’t want to be obvious and sketch the other lady in the waiting room, which I love to do. In a small room people are pretty aware of each other, not like a big room with lots of patients where I could hide what I was doing. So I fixed on my hands in my lap holding the pad and rapidograph on top of my handbag. You know, when no one else is available to pose I’m pretty reliable! I’m used to posing for me, isn’t that nice? Yeah, you can laugh now, I know it’s nutty, but “myself” is always around!

I’m off to have my body twisted and cracked now. I can’t wait!

Friday Photos

A Thought for Thursday

We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. ~ Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art

Wordless on Wednesday–Except for Arggggg!

So I complained about my computer yesterday, did that mean other things had to jump on his bandwagon and go crazy too? I didn’t think so, but that’s what happened. Here I was, all into having a great Tuesday and the main drainpipe to the street clogged up. That is no fun at all, not to mention the clean up. Argggg! Is that how I wanted to spend my day? No, but doesn’t it just figure? I swear, pipes and machines must talk to each other behind my back.

I Still Hate Computers

Remember when I said I hate computers? Well I still hate them and especially today!

Something happened and I lost the whole post for today. I am seething! I think I gave myself an evil eye or something because I was merrily writing along, happy with my thoughts on whatever when -Wham!- I pressed Save and it wouldn’t Save. Oh yeah. Nice. Ever hear of the blue screen of death? Yes, I had the blue screen of death come up. Now, instead of my nice lah-dee-dah post about how I love Mondays, yeah I know no one loves Monday but me, I end up with nothing except this photo of my garden this morning. Yup. I’m so thrilled. No I’m not.

Ok, so, you know what? I like Tuesdays even better than Mondays, so there! I was going to post here how I like Mondays because it’s the quiet after the weekend storm of activity, to plan or not to plan, how I don’t like shopping on Sunday, how stores were never open Sundays even if you needed an onion, and now the whole world is shopping for everything on Sunday! But now I’m writing that Tuesdays are even better than Monday because Tuesday is all about me! Hah!

On Tuesday I get to do whatever I feel like doing because the errands are done from Monday. I can paint if I want, or I can do an artist date. I can shop for beads and make some jewelry or I might knit. Tuesday is mine! I win!

Oops, I better keep it quiet or I might not be able to post this either. Darn computer!